meredith cutler :: arts marketing :: artist

Web Alert: the retail arm of my studio, Crostini Designs, is today's Site Of The Day on superfind indie shopping site NeatoStuff.com

Get it while it's hot! And remember, Buy Handmade this holiday season to support creative artists and indie businesses! We'll rebuild the heart of the economy one stitch, brush stroke and stir at a time if we have to (and look fabulous doing it, if I do say so myself).

Here's a high-energy video to start off the day (via Core77 via YouTube). Rhode Island native and RISD alum (BFA industrial design / MFA glass) C. Matthew Szosz gets his elemental energy out inflating fused sheets of window glass into sculptural glass "envelopes". Hot glass is explosive - the stillness of the final form is belied by the frenetic urgency of the process. Love it.

If you are in New York, these works are on display at Urban Glass in Brooklyn through this Friday, November 14th, as part of the Wheaton Fellows group show "The Space Between". Images of the finished "inflatables" are available on the Urban Glass website.

Image: C. Matthew Szosz, "#37", fused and inflated window glass

I'm up to my eyeballs today, (which is why, naturally, I'm off-topic pointing out neato websites instead of getting on-topic). I've been thinking about artist-run online communities lately, and the circuitry (or lack thereof) between them and a wider audience. Musing on this with clicks, apparantly, I rediscovered TinyVices.com, an artist-run online gallery out of New York, curated by photographer and publisher Tim Barber. While it's not exactly intuitive to navigate (again, circuitry) there is a deep well of juicy content here, ranging from individual artist portfolios to TV Books, Barber's on-demand artist book publishing service. Leading the virtual racehorse to the actual track, this online venue provides many real world opportunities for the participants, including gallery shows and book launches. Looks like one is coming up next week, if you're in Chelsea:

Here's a calorie-burning, life-affirming, utterly wacktastic participatory arts activity to help you while away your extra day of calendarial life: Performance artist Brian Feldman is challenging you (yes, you) to contemplate how you will spend your extra 1,440 minutes on this February 29, 2008, by leaping off of a 12-foot platform in front of Orlando City Hall every 3 minutes and 56 seconds, for a total of 366 occurances during the 24 hours of leap day. Will somebody get this guy a Red Bull? (Whee!)

As if we don't already have an overwhelming array of online time-wasters (I mean, ahem, enriching online activities), now I discover the new online networking community of "ItSpace".

A clever derivative of the now ubiquitous MySpace, ItSpace makes its mark on cyberspace by allowing inanimate, household objects to "network" with each other via the beautiful music trapped just beneath their shiny (or soft) surfaces.

And just HOW does this apply to reality (cyber or no) you might ask? Users are asked to record the sounds made with a household object, and to create a musical piece using just these sounds. Then, by uploading the musical clip along with a photograph of the object, a profile is created. Objects may then "befriend" other inanimate objects whose profiles are already included on the site. Another means of enjoying ItSpace is to remix existing objects (or, better yet, create a mashup! Blender, anyone?)

If anyone from the 9yds. days has a recording of that infamous '00 kitchen appliance and powertool jam at 40 Newcastle, please send it my way!